


forever is the sweetest con

by mariiposie



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29119869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariiposie/pseuds/mariiposie
Summary: "gina porter. clear your schedule. i'm about to give you the best last day in salt lake city that a girl can ask for."
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Gina Porter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	forever is the sweetest con

The city was silent. 

Overnight, a thick dusting of snow had cascaded down upon the drowsy city, twinkling down from the heavens and blanketing the concrete, as Ricky laid down, restless in bed. He couldn’t sleep. The sky was awake, moving and shifting as gallons of snow emptied from the vast infinity above. Henceforth, just as he’d told his parents every winter since he’d been born, he was also awake.

Maybe it was the adrenaline that raced through his veins, knowing that the entirety of the next day would likely be spent freezing in the snow. Days he’d looked forward to most. Something about Ricky and the freezing touch of snow just clicked.

Or maybe it was dread.

Gina’s last day in Salt Lake City had been set in stone ever since she’d gotten the call at Ashlyn’s party. On the walk back to hers, quickly, hot-tempered and in the pitch dark, Ricky had promised her that they’d spend the time wisely. Spend those ten days making all the memories they needed. But it had approached faster than the both of them could ever anticipate, and now, every time he shut his eyes, he could see the countdown of her final hours imprinted onto his eyelids.

He doesn’t want her to go. _Really_ doesn’t want her to go. Gina’s the only one who’s really _gotten_ him. In the span of three months, she’s managed to get him to open up in a way no one really has before. She’s the only one who’s really _listened_.

That’s why he knows he has to do this, for her.

With everything going on at school, and with the show, he knows she’s barely had a chance to just _experience_ everything Salt Lake has to offer. She’d been spending almost all of her free time rehearsing, and helping Carlos teach the choreography to everyone else.

So, the morning after the snowfall, on her last day, he pulls up to Gina’s house in his Dad’s car, a man with one mission in mind.

He’s wearing a jacket and another jacket on top of that, and he’s got the hat Gina knitted for him atop his head. His breaths still materialize in front of his face, and even with the countless layers, the tip of his nose feels as though it’s being gnawed off from the biting cold.

He presses the palm of his hand to the car horn, blaring loudly and shattering the illusion of silence that lingered on the untouched sheets of white. He waits for a moment, thinking the door won’t ever open.

Until it does.

Gina opens the door, wearing oversized pyjamas and a pair of bright pink unicorn slippers on her feet.

“What are you doing?” She asks, a look of puzzlement on her face.

He rests his car door open, and stands up on the frame, yelling to her from across her garden. “You seriously thought we weren’t going to do anything for your last day?”

She looks down at her feet. “Well yes, I just assumed --”

“Well, you assumed wrong. Gina Porter. Clear your schedule. I’m about to give you the best last day in Salt Lake City that a girl can ask for.”

“I like your hat, by the way.” She says warmly, upon clambering into the car almost ten minutes later.

He’s _known_ for a while, and he knows all the more as he looks over at her in the passenger seat, and sees her nose twinged pink with the freezing cold, and sees a scarf she’d knitted herself, similar to the one she’d given him on Thanksgiving, wrapped up to her neck, that he never wants her to leave. He thinks about how easily he could spend days on end doing this with her.

He knows they won’t. They can’t. She’s leaving tomorrow. This won’t happen again. At least, not in the same way.

He might see her again. But they’ll only ever be talking on borrowed time. He’ll still feel the same. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe distance is a bitch. Time is a bitch too.

“Ricky,” she clears her throat, “The light’s gone green.” She nods ahead.

He shakes his head, but his eyes still wind up drifting to her. She ends up laughing quietly to herself.

“What’s so funny over there?” He asks.

“Nothing.” She says, failing to hide the smile that danced on her lips. “You can’t just kidnap me so I can’t leave, you know.”

He smiles, turning to look at her as the car stills in the traffic heading out of the city. “As much as that thought had crossed my mind, that’s not what we’re doing. I just thought you could have your last day here without having to think about tomorrow. Let’s just forget about it, right?”

She nods, playing with the ring on her finger. “Just for today?” She asks.

“Just for today.”

She smiles down at her feet, almost solemnly. It’s quiet in the car for a moment. Because they both know how this day is going to end. Far too soon, and likely with too much left unsaid between the two of them. Gina takes a deep breath, and then she looks up, right at Ricky. “Okay, so if you’re _not_ kidnapping me, what are we doing instead?”

He smiles. “I’m glad you asked. Here’s the official list.” He hands her a scrap piece of paper from his jacket pocket, entitled ‘Gina’s last day.’

She squints, reading the itinerary through Ricky’s all but atrocious handwriting, which had been clearly written in the dark in the early hours of the morning. “One,” she reads aloud, “Make snow angels.” She looks over at him, tilting her head.

Ricky shrugs. “You said you’d never made them before. I thought now was as good a time as ever.”

The corners of her lips quirk into a smile. “You remember that?”

“I remember everything.” There’s a beat of silence before she speaks.

“And we couldn’t have done this in my garden _because…_ ”

“Look at number two.”

She holds his gaze for a moment, before looking back down to the paper. “Number two, go to a Christmas Market?”

The car slows at another traffic light, and he takes the opportunity to glance at her once again. “There’s one in the park just outside of town.”

“Right. And three, drink hot cocoa and watch Love Actually?” She smiles again, her eyes softening at the corners, because she knows that he’s remembered her mentioning at some point that she had never sat down and watched it. “Ricky, you didn’t have to do all this.”

He smiles back at her. “Except that I did. You can’t leave without having experienced this place to the fullest. Plus, I don’t think this even comes close to everything that you’ve done for me. I mean it, Gina.”

“Well,” her cheeks blush again, “Thank you, Ricky.”

A little while later, Ricky and Gina, and the orange buggy pull into the parking lot of a park. What Ricky knew was once a great expanse of green was now a huge swathe of white, practically untouched, no criss-cross of footprints, or trace of anyone having been here before them.

Before she can open her car door, Ricky gets out of his side and runs over, opening the door for her, and offering his hand for her to clamber out. She lifts an eyebrow, but Ricky shrugs. “Only the best for your last day.”

Then, he takes her by the hand, their fingers daring to interlock as they walk, and he leads her right out into the middle of the field, the unsullied snow beneath them crunching with every footfall they took.

He slows to a stop when finds a place he thinks is good, and he turns to Gina. He goes to move forward, but Gina grabs his wrist and pulls him back to her. “Wait, how do I--”

“Watch this.” He drops her hand and runs forward, immediately flops face-first into the snow, which, in retrospect probably wasn’t the _brightest_ idea, because now his front is completely soaked by melted snow, but when Gina spreads her arms and flops out right next to him, in the end, the wet hair is fully worth it.

“You know what, you’re right. This _is_ fun.” She flaps her arms up and down and so does Ricky, and for a while they just sit there in six inches deep of snow, standing up, moving over a foot or so, and then making another, until there are a dozen or so silhouettes imprinted in the snow.

Gina hesitates on the last one though, as snow begins to fall from the greying sky, and lands in her hair and on the tip of her nose, and she sits there for a moment, shutting her eyes against it, like she’s letting herself take it in.

Ricky can’t say that he knows exactly how she feels, because he doesn’t. But he gets it. He gets Gina in a way he hasn’t really _gotten_ anyone before. He _understands_ how she must feel. He knows she’s not really the kind of person to let herself open up to people. It’s probably why she sounded more surprised than he did in the car that night after Homecoming. She was speaking to him like she’d known him her whole life.

Something shifted in her, after that. Like she was softer somehow.

He wants to live in this moment, no matter how fleeting. He quickly takes a picture of her flopped out on the ground, delicate snowflakes in her hair.

It’s quiet for a moment. Just the both of them sitting in the silence of solitude.

Then Gina sits up and she gets that look in her eyes and he knows exactly what she’s about to do.

“Gi, no --” But her hand is already full of snow, and then she’s pelting it at full speed right at Ricky’s face. She scrambles onto her feet and starts running as fast as she can because she knows he’s going to retaliate, but Ricky’s quicker than her, and he grabs her by the waist, pulling her into him. She swallows, as though she’s anticipating something, but his hand is already full of snow and before he knows it, he’s dumping it right on top of her head.

Gina ends up falling to the ground trying to shake the snow from where it had fallen down her back, and she pulls Ricky down with her.

They’re side-by-side in the snow again. This time, closer than they were before. Ricky’s arm is dangerously close to finding itself comfortably wrapped around Gina’s shoulder. Before he can, she shuffles and places her head on his chest.

Once again, they’re both sitting there in the stillness of a December morning. Something Ricky can see himself becoming perilously addicted to.

The next time his eyes catch with hers is as Christmas songs play from a speaker at the far end of the market. Ricky takes a seat on the bench beside her, handing her a steaming cup of mulled wine.

“Do I even want to know how you got these?”

He shakes his head, a knowing smirk on his lips. “Let’s not question that right now.”

They’ve spent the past hour wandering around the market, coming up all but empty-handed. Everything was on the furthest end of expensive, and neither of them could afford anything. Other than two of the tiniest snowglobes on the face of the planet, which were now in a paper bag by Gina’s feet.

They were identical, both all-white and displaying an image of a reindeer-led sleigh flying over the sky. Ricky wasn’t a sentimental person, and he knew Gina wasn’t either. But like the hat, sometimes physical memories, things you could hold and cherish, were just as good as the ones you held within your mind. He’d put it on his bedside table when he got home, and he knew every time he looked at it, he’d think of this day.

He’d think of Gina. If she could hear his thoughts now. She’d call him a sap, or “too soft for his own good.”

She brings the cup to her lips and takes a sip. “Yikes that’s really--” her face scrunches, “That’s really sweet.”

“Good sweet?” He takes a swig from his own drink.

She smiles, tight-lipped. “Sure.” Then she looks up. Her cheeks flush the same red as they had in the car on the drive here. “Uh, Ricky?”

His eyes follow hers upwards. Cable tied to one of the beams holding up the roof of the lean-to was a sprig of mistletoe. Right above their heads.

She seems to understand his thought process, because, before he can even say ‘I swear this wasn’t planned, we just have the worst luck,’ Gina looks at him, like _really_ looks at him, and says, “Maybe you should try it and see what happens.”

So he does. He places his hand over hers, where it rests on her knee, and he leans into her and kisses her on her cheek.

When he pulls back, his hand is still on hers, and there’s something in her eyes, something that’s so close to leaving him ruins. The sun begins to set, and even when she’s looking at him like _that_ , he’s more consciously aware than ever of how this day is going to end.

All he’s going to have left is that stupid snowglobe when all he really wants is sitting under the mistletoe right in front of him.

He hands her a steaming mug of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and _way_ too many marshmallows. She’s already tucked beneath a plaid blanket, and the TV has just begun to play Love Actually, a film that three weeks ago Gina had said she’d never seen, a fact that Ricky hadn’t forgotten.

The opening scene starts, and Ricky shifts, handing Gina her mug and settling beneath the same plaid blanket. For a moment, he thinks she’s going to rest her head on his shoulder, but she opts for the back of her hand instead.

The narrator on the screen begins to speak. **“Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there.”** At that very moment, Gina takes a sip of her drink and gets the tip of her nose covered in cream. She turns to him, and without even realising he’s doing it, Ricky’s carefully wiping it off her nose.

He watches as her skin flushes, and she quickly averts her eyes back to the TV, where the narrator continues with his monologue. But Ricky doesn’t pull his eyes away from Gina. He’s still watching her.

This whole day, he’s known how it was going to end. He’s had to remind himself of it, whenever he’s felt dangerously close to making a mistake he didn’t want to make. Because if she didn’t feel the same, if she didn’t --

He didn’t want that to be her last memory of this place.

But Gina keeps pulling him closer to her. Figuratively and literally, because her hand has found its way to the back of his neck, and she’s playing with the curls that sit there like she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it.

**“If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling, you’ll find that love actually is all around.”**

Gina turns back and looks at him, because at that moment she knows exactly what he’s going to say. But before he gets a chance to, she speaks first. “Don’t say anything. You don’t have to say it just because I’m leaving. And if you were going to do it, I’d want you to mean it. Not because the inevitability of me leaving is lingering above our heads. Because if you say it, I know I’ll say it back. And I know it’s going to hurt Ricky. Hurt the both of us.”

He pauses the TV, and words quickly come spilling out of him like an avalanche falling from the highest peak of a mountain. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. We can do long distance. I don’t mind. You’re worth it Gi. And I’ve thought it all out, and --”

“Ricky…” Her hand is on his cheek and her voice is quiet.

He shakes his head, his voice fading. “Yeah. I know.”

“Just sit with me. Sit in this moment. Just for now.” She interlocks her fingers with his.

“Just for now.” He repeats.

“I know it sucks.” She sighs. “I just wish we could stop the clocks.” Her cheek is resting on his shoulder, but she’s looking straight ahead, the flames of the fireplace beneath the TV bouncing in the reflection in her eyes, her bottom lip catching between her teeth.

“I have an idea.” He says, almost catching himself off guard.

“And that would be?”

He takes her warm hands into his cold ones. The radio was tinny, playing some old Christmas song he barely recognised over the sound of static. Outside was dark, and now the only light in the house was emanating from the frozen television.

He lifts her to her feet, and wraps his hands around her waist. Her arms go around his neck.

Her head nestles into the crook of his shoulder.

“Happy Christmas Gi. I--”

“Don’t say it.” She presses a finger to his lips. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“That’s funny. Because I miss you already.”

“Cute.” She deadpans. “Real cute.” She sighs again, deep and loud. “You know how you keep saying how I’m _amazing_ at everything?”

He nods. “Because you are.” She’s so close to him that his chin sits on top of her head, and he’s half tempted to leave it there. Until she looks up, and her thumb is running circles along his jaw.

“There’s one thing I’ll never be good at.” When she looks at him, it’s like she’s looking _into_ him. Like with one glance she knows everything thought that _has_ ever and _will_ ever run through his mind. Her voice is no louder than a whisper now, and it’s a good thing they’re so close, or he never would’ve heard the words that barely even leave her lips. “Saying goodbye.”

“So we won’t say goodbye. I’ll drop you off and say ‘see you soon’ instead. Because I know I will Gi. Unlucky for you, there’s a piece of you in Salt Lake City now.”

“You’re so --” She laughs, quietly, barely a breath. “I’d like that.”

Even with her head on his shoulder, and words threatening to spill from his lips, it becomes obvious that they were only prolonging the inevitable.

Before long, she’d be on the other side of the country. In a week, he’d tell another girl that he loved her. 

But just for tonight, they were in each other’s arms.

Dancing to an old Christmas song and forgetting that this night is going to have an end.


End file.
